PORT ANGELES — Look at a photo of Patti Allen and you can’t help but think: Joyous.
The singer in the minidress and 2,000-watt smile is part of the triumvirate called the West Coast Women’s Blues Revue, and she’s headed back here this Saturday night for a show at Olympic Cellars.
Ask her how, at age 71, she shines this brightly, and Allen replies:
“There’s something about music that is so healing — for everybody. We get as much out of it as the audience does,” through songs such as Denise LaSalle’s “Mississippi Woman” and Aretha Franklin’s “Rock Steady.”
The latter is one of Allen’s specialties. During it “you cannot stay seated,” she promised.
The West Coast Women’s Blues Revue, which played Olympic Cellars last summer too, will arrive on stage at 7 p.m.; gates at the winery will swing open at 6 p.m. Tickets to see the three singers and their band are $14 in advance at www.brownpapertickets.com (search for Olympic Cellars) or at the winery itself at 255410 U.S. Highway 101. After 3 p.m. Saturday, the price rises to $17. Either way, half the proceeds benefit Volunteer Hospice of Clallam County (www.vhocc.org).
The featured artists — Allen, singer-guitarist Teri Anne Wilson and vocalist Lady A — will each do sets. And Lady A, said Allen, is one formidable performer. The two women met at a club show years ago.
“I said, ‘Thank goodness.’ Not a lot of women put as much passion into a performance as she does.
“She brings it, as the kids say.
“Knocking my socks off is what she does.”
Allen also praised Wilson, the founder of the Women’s Blues Revue.
“She has my admiration and respect,” Allen said, “and I love her dearly.”
To hear the West Coast Women’s blues, funk and R&B is to hear the feminine perspective on life. Singers such as Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith laid the foundation for what this group does: sing from the heart as mothers, daughters, sisters or all of the above.
Also likely to be on the set list Saturday are Ruth Brown’s “Five, 10, 15 Hours,” Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” B.B. King’s “Every Day I Have the Blues” and Robert Johnson’s “Love in Vain.”
The blues is not about sad songs; nor is it serious all the time, said Wilson. To wit: Lady A does an original titled “My Future Ex-Husband,” about how she likes to be married — and likes to be free.
“We have featured artists get up,” said Wilson, who also touted her band: bassist Lissa Ramaglia, saxophonist Sheryl Clark, guitarist John Hanford and drummer Zach Cooper.
“Then we all do a grand finale together . . . to whip people into a frenzy,” she said.
“If you want to feel uplifted and happy,” Allen added, “we’re the ones.
“We will take you through every emotion, and bring you out smiling and dancing and jumping up and down.
“You’re going to see some strong women.”
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
